Cinemaissí 2017: Violence against women / Violenza sulle donne

Cinemaissí, the Helsinki Latin American Film festival, is organized in the capital of Finland every autumn (19 October-22 Octoberthis year).

I recently wrote an article related to the last year’s festival thus if you are interested I would recommend reading the article from this link.
This time, I decided to focus on a specific and relevant topic: Violence against women.

This important issue, as it came up last month, was viral and highlighted around the world, thanks to the actress Alyssa Milano´s campaign #Metoo.

The festival made a selection of around 50 films, divided by a given theme, and it gave a significant space to women´s films.

Films

I think the best film I watched during the festival which portrayed the topic was the documentaryIntimidates Battles(Batallas Intimas) by Lucía Gajá

The film explores the lives of five women in different parts of the world (the United States, Finland, Mexico, India and Spain) and how these protagonists deal with the separation of their husbands who physically and mentally violate them.

Violence against women is a very significant issue that should be tackled globally. One out of three women in the world are victims of sexual assault. Home should be a safe place for everyone but for the women in this film, and for millions of people in the world, it isn’t.

Panel discussions

Among the screenings, Cinemaissí also set up panel discussions free of charge.

On “violence against women”, Camila Rosa organised a panel discussion in Luckanand she was accompanied with the actress and singer Anastasia Trizna(Eve´s Ribs) and the multidisciplinary artist Sepideh Rahaa.

Through involving the public and listening to their opinions and experiences, we realised how important this topic is and it should be highlighted globally because there is wide-spread ignorance on sexual violence.

Short Films

Indelebleby Carla Larrea, of the films I watched, showed the Violence against women theme most strong.

The plot is about best friends and of a terrible event which will change their relationship forever.

Usually, a victim of rape knows the person who sexually violates them, a friend or an acquaintance for instance. It is very rare that a stranger rapes someone who they know beforehand. Of course, media prefers to highlight the opposite. But statistics refer differently.

A film festival can be an effortless mediator

Many films focused on topics about equalities of genders. Also, highlighting the issue of violence in films is a difficult task.

I believe that through a simple and delightful way as it is a film festival, we could really shuffle the cards and acknowledge people. We must encourage awareness on these topics for all the people we know in order to support realism and to defeat fake news.